Spotify's aim with the unspeakable move of demonetizing songs that don't get 1,000 streams a year was to discourage spammy uploads on the platform.
What it's actually doing a month later is not stopping that spam which was always going to occur, hurting most musicians on the platform (everyone but a fortunate 14% or so) and creating this cottage industry of "playlist community/promotion" dudes who are not real promoters. They promise chances of popular playlist placement for money or putting you on their community playlist with... everyone else who paid them, I'm sure real people definitely listen to that. These people always existed, but now they have this real fear of not breaking the 1000-stream barrier to use as leverage.
If you use Spotify to listen to "smaller artists" (hell, I still have some tracks that probably don't get 1000 streams a year), forget the percentage of a cent thing--they might not be getting paid at all.
P.S. We still don't understand if that means you have to hit 1000 plays every year, or within 12 months of this change, or what. If anyone knows let me know, lol.
the article mentions at the end they’re also raising the fucking cost of the subscription1. so let me get this straight, they’re literally fucking 86% of artists on the platform and they have the fucking gall to also charge people more for it? they’re literally charging you more to support your favorite artists less. jesus christ. get a used ipod and load it up with real albums you bought on bandcamp or something idk. at least that gives the artist real money.
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by $1–2 and only in certain regions but still
